


On Apollo and the Nature of Identity

by Keyseeker



Series: ToA analysis [7]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Meta, Written Between The Tyrant's Tomb and Tower of Nero, not fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:54:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24866389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keyseeker/pseuds/Keyseeker
Summary: Apollo's identity issues make up a significant portion of his character arc in Trials of Apollo, much of it symbolized by the usage and changing, layered meaning behind the names he goes by - Lester Papadopoulous and Apollo.
Series: ToA analysis [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799089
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	On Apollo and the Nature of Identity

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [On Apollo and the Nature of Identity](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/636691) by Flightfoot. 



Throughout the Trials of Apollo series, Apollo has struggled with his identity; who he is now that he isn’t a god, what it means to be himself. His new alias - Lester Papadopoulos - helps to exemplify his identity crisis. The name is a perfectly ordinary human name to reflect his new state of existence. He doesn’t particularly like it (especially at first), but uses it occasionally nonetheless. It seemed kind of odd to me how Rick has characters use “Lester” vs. “Apollo”, but I think I may have an idea of why.

I think “Lester” may be serving as a kind of epithet for Apollo - as a sort of additional name describing his current circumstances and form, and everything that goes with it. It’s why, especially in the early books, he tends to think of himself as Lester in a somewhat derogatory manner, such as when he’s failing at archery in THO:

 _Zeus had cursed me with mortality. I was not going to pretend that everything was normal. I would not be Apollo until I was really Apollo. For now, I was just a stupid young man named Lester Papadopolous._ (143)

Sometimes his friends would call him “Lester” too, like how Leo referred to him as “Lester man”, or just because. 

In TDP Commodus exclusively refers to him as Lester… until the end of his rant at the finale of the book.

_Commodus scoffed. “You’re damp and speckled with bat poop, Lester. You’re a pathetic child who has been dragged through the darkness. That darkness is still in your mind. I see the fear in your eyes. This is your true form, Apollo! You’re a fraud!”_

_Apollo. He had called me by my name._ (371)

Commodus associates “Lester” with weakness and fear, with his new mortal form… but he still calls him “Apollo” at the end, in an attempt to combine what he thinks of “Lester” with what he thinks of “Apollo”, I believe. Because “Apollo” is him as a whole - “Apollo” in total, while “Lester” only describes his current circumstances. “Apollo” was powerful enough to kill Commodus, but “Lester”? Maybe not.

Apollo still considers, well “Apollo”, to be his name, because, well, it is, AND I suspect because of how he associates his current form with powerlessness, a helplessness that he didn’t have as a god… or at least didn’t recognize in the same way. This can be seen from the ending lines of TBM:

_But from now on, I would be more than Lester. I would be more than an observer._

_I would be Apollo._

_I would remember._ (419)

He was unable to save Jason as Lester, as a mortal. As an observer. But with the strength he associates with being Apollo, he may be able to.

But things change in Tyrant’s Tomb. This book, Apollo doesn’t seem to associate Lester with weakness and fear to the same extent. Or at least, he doesn’t seem as depressed about it. He actually jokes about it a little with Meg when trying to reassure her:

 _“When we summon godly help, I can ask for complete healing. I’m sure I’ll be as good as new. Or at least, as good as a Lester can be.”_ (189)

He’s also called Lester a decent amount this book, by Reyna mostly, weirdly enough. When she calls him up to speak to the council, it’s as “Lester Papadopoulos”, not as Apollo. And just in general, she calls him Lester by default. Kinda contrasts with Frank, who mostly calls him “Apollo”, but does call him Lester in certain circumstances, such as when talking about the new birthday he was assigned (as Lester)

 _“You’ll have to leave for Sutro early on Lester’s birthday.”_ (186)

Frank calls him “Lester” here because he’s referring to Apollo in his capacity AS Lester. Most of the time he calls him “Apollo”, which I’m betting is because he looked up to Apollo as a god - and still does to an extent. It probably helps that Frank’s awesome with a bow and arrow, and Apollo was one of the few cases where Romans respected that.

Anyway, back to Reyna. She does refer to “Apollo” and “Lester” separately later, when laughing about him awkwardly offering to be her boyfriend: 

_“Apollo. When you were a god…” She struggled for breath. “Like, with your powers and good looks and whatever-”  
_

_“Say no more. Naturally you would have-”  
_

_“That would have been a solid, absolute, hard-pass NO.”  
_

_I gaped. “I am_ astonished _!”_

_“And as Lester… I mean, you’re sweet and kind of adorkable at times.”  
_

_“Adorkable?_ At times _?”  
_

 _“But wow. Still a big-time NO. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”_ (237-238)

She views him as being the same person sort of, but in different capacities. And she actually seems to like him as Lester more. Still doesn’t want to DATE him of course, but she was less vehement about the second one.

You kind of see this again later, after Reyna finds out about what Apollo did to Coronis and the crows, how she seems to view him MORE highly as a mortal than as a god.

 _“But you’re the- you_ used _to be the god of music, right? If you can charm a crowd, you should be able to repulse one. Pick a song those birds will hate!”_

_Great. Not only had Reyna laughed in my face and busted my nose, now I was her go-to guy for repulsiveness._

_Still… I was struck by the way she said I_ used to _be a god. She didn’t seem to mean it as an insult. She said it almost like a concession - like she knew what a horrible deity I had been, but held out hope that I might be capable of being someone better, more helpful, maybe even worthy of forgiveness_. (255)

I don’t think she’s calling Apollo “Lester” as any sort of insult. To me it seems like by calling him Lester, she’s acknowledging this new side to him, this mortal side, and how he’s different from how he used to be. 

This is actually kinda shown during the confrontation with Harpocrates, with how Reyna and Meg defend him:

_In front of me, Reyna and Meg stood shoulder to shoulder, facing down the god._

_They sent him their own flurry of images. Reyna pictured me singing “The Fall of Jason Grace” to the legion, officiating at Jason’s funeral pyre with tears in my eyes, then looking goofy and awkward and clueless as I offered to be her boyfriend, giving her the best, most cleansing laugh she’d had in years (Thanks, Reyna.)_

_Meg pictured the way I’d saved her in the myrmekes lair at Camp Half-Blood, singing about my romantic failures with such honesty it rendered giant ants catatonic with depression. She envisioned my kindness to Livia the elephant, to Crest, and especially to her, when I’d given her a hug in our room at the cafe and told her I would never give up trying._

_In all their memories, I looked so human… but in the best possible ways. Without words, my friends asked Harpocrates if I was still the person he hated so much._ (288-289)

He’s still Apollo, but they DON’T consider him to be the same person he was exactly. He seems pretty human, but in GOOD ways, and that change? That part of him? I believe they’re associating that with “Lester”, as that’s the name he’s been given as a human. He’s still Apollo - just because he’s changed, it doesn’t absolve him of what he’s done, and it is all part of him - but Lester represents the new experiences and new attitude he’s acquired, the person he’s become. “Lester” isn’t just the weakness and powerlessness he associates with being mortal, but also the strengths he’s gained from his new friendships, from seeing himself and the world clearly - well, mostly clearly anyway. Clearer than he ever has before.

“Lester” was originally a name assigned to him by Zeus as part of his humiliation, same as the rest of his “turning mortal” punishment. But like the rest of the punishment, I think it’s going to backfire. If the name “Lester Papadopoulos” exemplifies his time as a mortal, an experience Zeus is putting him through in order to punish and humiliate Apollo, frighten him and other gods from stepping out of line, then I doubt that, like the growth Apollo has experienced, that he would cast it away. I suspect that it will end up as an alias that he reclaims, a name that starts out as derogatory but that is soon worn as a badge of honor. He may be Apollo, but I can’t see him being ashamed of who he was as a mortal, as Lester Papadopoulos. 

“Apollo” is the sum total of who he is, but “Lester” represents a new part of him that he’s just now realizing is there, is actively growing and changing. He’s still struggling to integrate his new realizations into himself, but when he does, I think he’ll truly be himself.

We see some of this identity struggle hinted at throughout the book, like when talking with Lupa:

_“My time,” I said. “For what, exactly?”  
_

_She nipped the air in annoyance._ To be Apollo. The pack needs you.

 _I wanted to scream_ I’ve been _trying_ to be Apollo. It’s not that easy! (95)

“Being Apollo” here obviously represents something deeper than just existing. But it doesn’t seem to really refer to just regaining power. Apollo actually says that he DOES know what she means - and to a certain extent, I think he’s right.

 _“Fine,” I relented. “I know what you mean. The last lines from the Dark Prophecy. I’ve reached the Tiber alive, et cetera, et cetera. Now I am supposed to ‘jive’. I assume that entails more than dancing and snapping my fingers._ (96)

“Jiving” in this case appears, I believe, to refer to Apollo’s new revelations about who he is as a person, and the kind of person he wants to be. This is supported by what the arrow says when Apollo asks it how he’s supposed to “start to jive’, and the arrow basically says that it will think about that matter. After Apollo complains a bit about how he needs to know NOW, because they’re about to face Tarquin, this piece of conversation occurs:

_“I appreciate a good boon as much as the next person. But if I’m going to contribute to this quest and not just cower in the corner, I need to know how” - my voice cracked “how to be me again.”  
_

_The vibration of the arrow felt almost like a cat purring, trying to sooth an ill human. ART THOU SURE THAT IS THY WISH?_

_“What do you mean?” I demanded. “That’s the whole point! Everything I’m doing is so-”_ (138)

Here, Apollo’s still associating being “himself” with his godly power, but the arrow implies something different. And is trying to comfort him about it, which is a sharp departure from its usual attitude in previous books.

Apollo talks to the arrow again later, while on the excursion with Meg and Reyna, and it has this to say:

 _THOU HAST FOUND THY GROOVE. AT LEAST THE BEGINNINGS OF THY GROOVE. I SUSPECTED THIS WOULD BE SO, GIVEN TIME. CONGRATULATIONS ARE MERITED._ (266)

I have my suspicions about what his “groove” is here. This takes place just after the three of them fend off the ravens, after Meg and Reyna found out about some of the horrible things Apollo had done in the past, and he comes to these realizations:

_“Can we talk about this later?” I pleaded. “Or perhaps never? I was a god then! I didn’t know what I was doing!”  
_

_A few months ago, a statement like that would have made no sense to me. Now, it seemed true. I felt as if Meg had given me her thick-lensed rhinestone-studded glasses, and to my horror, they corrected my eyesight. I didn’t like how small and tawdry and petty everythin looked, rendered in perfect ugly clarity through the magic of Meg-O-Vision. Most of all, I didn’t like the way I looked - not just present-day Lester, but the god formerly known as Apollo._ (252-253)

_I wanted to sing for Reyna, to prove that I had indeed changed. I was no longer the god who’d had Koronis killed and created ravens, or cursed the Cumaean Sibyl, or done any of the other selfish things that had once given me no more pause than choosing what dessert toppings I wanted on my ambrosia._

_It was time to be helpful. I needed to be repulsive for my friends!_ (256)

I think this realization - of how horrible he had been while a god, of how he had changed, of his determination to BE a different person than he once was, while still acknowledging who he’d been in the past - I think THAT is his groove. His jive. Not just him realizing who he was, but turning his determination to make things better into power.

It’s reinforced later with him thinking about how hollow he feels:

_When had I last felt “whole”? I wanted to believe it was back when I was a god, but that wasn’t true. I hadn’t been completely myself for centuries. Maybe millennia._

_At the moment, I felt more like a hole - a void in the cosmos through which Harpocrates, the Sibyl, and a lot of people I cared about had vanished._ (316)

Honestly, I don’t know that he was ever really “himself” in the way he thinks. Some of the worst things he did, he did in ancient times. He just may not have recognized it as such at the time. But as the time passed, I’d imagine that existence would have grown more hollow, as he doesn’t seem to have formed many deep bonds - mostly surface-level ones that he fooled himself into thinking were deep, like when he convinced himself that he loved the Cumaean Sibyl.

His comparisons between himself and the Emperors when referring to his encounters with Harpocrates shows this to some extent:

_The emperors would’ve considered Harpocrates just another dangerous, amusing plaything, like their trained monsters and humanoid lackeys._

_And why not let King Tarquin be his custodian? The emperors could ally themselves with the undead tyrant, at least temporarily, to make their of Camp Jupiter a little easier. They could let Tarquin arrange his cruelest trap for me. Whether I killed Harpocrates or he killed me, what did it matter to the Triumvirate in the end? Ether way, they would find it entertaining - one more gladiator match to break the monotony of their immortal lives._ (273)

This description sounds an awful lot like the Olympian gods attitude, with them not caring what happens to demigods much, just using others as entertainment. So long as they weren’t majorly threatened, why should they care? They can just sit back and watch, like Apollo talked about doing back in The Dark Prophecy when he was a god:

 _When I was a god, I would have felt delighted to leave the mortal heroes to fend for themselves. I would have made popcorn and watched the bloodbath from a distance on Mount Olympus, or simply caught the highlight reel later._ (283)

Apollo’s directly compares himself to the emperors soon afterwards, when reliving Harpocrates memories from his point of view:

 _The god glared at me. He forced painful images into my mind: me stuffing his head into a toilet on Mount Olympus; me howling with amusement as I tied his wrists and ankles and shut him in the stables with my fire-breathing horses. Dozens of other encounters I’d completely forgotten about, and in all of them I was as golden, handsome, and powerful as any Triumvirate emperor - and just as cruel._ (279)

Apollo hasn’t been the kind of person he really saw himself as - the kind of person he wishes to be since - well, I don’t know if it was EVER. Certainly not for a VERY long time. He and the Emperors aren’t as different as he’d like… or WEREN’T, at least. Though the Emperors were more outwardly cruel, with none of Apollo’s good qualities, it seems. 

But that’s changed now. Apollo can see who he was and is trying to change, to be someone better. He can’t fix everything - an apology won’t undo the Cumaean Sibyl’s or Harpocrates suffering - but he can make things better NOW.

As the Emperors invade, his summoning seems to have failed everything looks hopeless:

_The emperors obviously wanted to send a message: they intended to dominate the world at any cost. They would stop at nothing. They would mutilate and maim. They would waste and destroy. Nothing was sacred except their own power._

_I rose unsteadily. My hopelessness turned into boiling anger. I howled, “NO!”_ (340)

This - now this is when I think he TRULY jives. He rejects hopelessness, he rejects weakness, he rejects despair. The world may be going down in flames, but he’ll fight it. He can’t change the past, but the present? Now THAT he can do something about.

He charges in and fights against hopeless odds, without a plan even, because he’s NOT going to just stand by and watch people die. Not anymore. 

His divine powers return somewhat. He survives a blow that should have killed him, he punches Commodus so hard his armor dents, and after Frank’s supposed death, he literally screams Commodus into ashes. Even before that, when he truly thinks he’s about to die fighting Commodus, he doesn’t waste time worrying about his death. He fights to at least hobble Commodus first, to cut his tendons so that even if he dies, he’ll have made it easier for someone else to take him down. He never stops fighting, he never gives up, even when he believes he can’t save himself anymore. He’s at least begun to figure out who he is now, and to act on it. He’s been having his old self torn down and rebuilt nearly from scratch, and this is the result. 

His heroism, how he’s changed - it’s reflected in another character at the end of the book. Don the faun has appeared before, both in TTT and SON, and he’s supposedly been pretty useless, like most fauns. But here, in this book, he was useful, though scared. He even helped the other nature spirits to sabotage the Emperor’s weapons, staying behind on the ships, sacrificing his own life to ensure that it was done right. He survives, but not for long. As he’s dying, he talks with Apollo:

_“Hey, Apollo, you- you know the difference between a faun and a satyr…?”  
_

_[…]_

_A moment later, his body collapsed with a noise like a relieved sigh, crumbling into fresh loam. In the spot where his heart had been, a tiny sapling emerged from the soil. I immediately recognized the shape of those miniature leaves. Not a hemlock. A laurel - the tree I had created from poor Daphne, and whose leaves I had decided to make into wreaths. The laurel, the tree of victory._

_One of the dryads glanced at me. “Did you do that…?”_

_I shook my head. I swallowed the bitter taste from my mouth._

_“The only difference between a satyr and a faun,” I said, “is what we see in them. And what they see in themselves. Plant this tree somewhere special.: I looked up at the dryads. “Tend it and make it grow healthy and tall. This was Don the faun, a hero.”_ (398-399)

The difference between a satyr and a faun, in other words, is nothing physical. It’s societal and psychological. I believe that Apollo is also, to an extent, talking about gods and mortals. The gods have long believed that they can’t change and mature like mortals, but also, largely, that they don’t need to because they’re gods; they’re above mortals. But Apollo has seen - has experienced - that that isn’t true. That mortals and gods may have different power levels, but at their heart, they’re not so different.

It also says something about his more recent state, as Lester, when he’s considered himself useless - when others have considered him… well, not exactly useless, but not all that useful either in the early books. But sort of like with Don, the difference between him and the demigod heroes, who are at sort of similar power levels, more has to do with what people see in him, and what he sees in himself. How he’s thinking about himself now. What it means to be a hero. To be a good person.

By the end of the book, Apollo’s regained a lot of his godly power, but it hasn’t changed who he’s become. Because it was never godhood that made him who he was, him beginning to regain that godhood isn’t changing who he is, who he’s become, what he’s gained from being Lester. I know some people have worried about Apollo potentially rejecting godhood, but I really don’t see that happening. He’s already regaining his godhood on HIS terms. The power from godhood was never the problem. Only what that godhood was used for.

Personally, I suspect that he’ll continue to use Lester sometimes, as a reminder of that part of his life, of what he’s learned, of what he’s become, even after he’s regained all his power. He may even keep something similar to his Lester form (though I suspect with less flab and acne). But he’ll keep the power. Because he can use that to help others, to try to make up in some small way for all that he’s done.


End file.
